How much do you love your Eskimos?
A lot of people show their support by wearing Green-and-Gold paraphernalia while cheering for the team during home games at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium. Total attendance this season has exceeded 261,000 (an average of 32,664 fans per game, with a single-game high of 41,738) through the first eight games of the regular season.
Of course, the fanatics often take it a lot further.
With 27 Eskimos jerseys in his closet at last count, Mike Smith-Knutsen has a lot of options when it comes to making his game-day selection.
“The one I have been wearing a lot this year is Kwaku Boateng’s 93,” said Smith-Knutsen, 48. “I could be called a hoarder for the Eskimos stuff that I have. I’m always wearing something Green-and-Gold at some point.”
Smith-Knutsen went to his first Eskimos game with his future step-dad when he was six years old in 1975.
“That was the way he bonded with me before he married my mom,” said Smith-Knutsen. “That’s kind of what started it off. It was just a great time to be an Eskimos fan. We were in the Grey Cup virtually every year and we were winning most of them. I fell in love with the sport and, especially through (my step-dad), the history of football.”
The family had season tickets at Clarke Stadium and moved with the Eskimos into Commonwealth Stadium in 1978.
Hall of Famer Henry (Gizmo) Williams reached the 10,000-yard mark in career CFL punt returns at Matt Machado’s first Eskimos game in 1998.
“My dad had a free ticket, so we went to the game,” said Machado, who is now 30. “I never really watched football until that game. Then I started getting into it and I played it in high school.”
Machado got season tickets for the first time when he was 15 so he could get a ticket to the 2002 Grey Cup game in Edmonton and soon became a big fan.
His initial core group of brother Peter, buddy Jay Ferguson and Ferguson’s parents, Norm and Sharon, has since grown to about 25 people, but they still sit in the upper deck at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium so they can scream, cheer, or get as loud as they want.
Modelled after a group in Hamilton called the Box J Boys, it’s easy to find Machado’s group. They’re the ones who have been dressing up in wild (and sometimes “stupid”) costumes in Section O since 2006.
“We have our own escape from reality, we like to call it,” he said.
Kayla Doucet, 30, was a big hockey fan prior to finding football when she was in high school. Initially, she was attracted to the NFL, but once she starting attending Eskimos games about 10 years ago, she fell in love with the CFL game.
Doucet has an old Ricky Ray jersey (No. 15), but the one she wears to games this season is generic.
“I think I know which (number) I’m going to put on it, but I’m going to make sure he is signed for next year before I do,” she said.
Besides the jerseys, which she considers “a good-luck charm,” Doucet could almost wear an entire outfit of Green and Gold clothing.
“I always make sure that there’s some EE visible on my body somewhere,” she said. “The only thing I don’t have is pants. I just need something on my pants that says ‘Eskimos’ and then I’m good to go.”
Doucet’s appreciation of football has grown by leaps and bounds since she started working with the Eskimo Empire Podcast group in July.
“Before, I loved the game and I loved watching different players and stuff,” she said. “I absolutely have fallen in love with analyzing. … Learning the game of football in a whole new way and a whole new light has almost energized my love. I didn’t think I could love football any more than I already have.”
Andrew Hoskins, 42, started doing Eskimos podcasts in the “Turf District” – a room completely covered in pictures and Green-and-Gold memorabilia in his basement – every Monday night in 2015 with Doug McLean and Joshua Semchuk rotating as co-hosts.
“I’m always surprised that anybody else listens to it other than me or my mom,” said Hoskins. “It really introduced me to a whole new world of people who had the same passion as I did.”
Hoskins quickly became a fan after going to his first Eskimos game when he was six with Uncle Tim, who appeared on some early podcasts. He went to all of Edmonton’s home games when he was in high school and the second date with his future wife was the Labour Day rematch game with the Calgary Stampeders in September 2000.
“It turned our rather well for me,” Hoskins said. “As it turned out, we both liked the Eskimos, so we’ve been going to games ever since.”
They’ve had season tickets since 2002.
Hoskins wears one of four Eskimos jerseys “depending upon how I feel for the game.” His choices include a new Derel Walker (No. 87), James Franklin (No. 2), Calvin McCarty (No. 31) and a special one made for his 40th birthday with “The Freak” and No.40 on the back.
Doing a weekly podcast during the season (and less regular in the off-season) for the last three years has been “a blast.”
“When we started the podcast, we wanted to connect with more Eskimos fans and give them a place where we could all group together and share in our love of the team,” Hoskins said. “It’s a lot work, but mostly, it’s a lot of fun. Every time you get in the room to record, it’s just, ‘Hey, we get to sit down and spend the evening talking about football and the Eskimos.’ Let me tell you, there’s not many better places to be.”
The podcasts, which were posted on iTunes and SoundCloud before a new website was recently unveiled, have evolved over the years. Initially, a different fan was featured each week, but that started to change after former Eskimos receiver Fred Bailey appeared on Episode 11 in 2015. Since then, Eskimos players and alumni and different people from across the CFL became involved.
Out of 109 episodes, Hoskins’ favourite is Episode 100 “because we were able to talk to Warren Moon, who was my hero as a kid growing up.” He had joked about getting Moon on the podcast when they got to 100, but didn’t expect it to actually occur. “We had about a 20-minute conversation that I’ve listened to a number of times over and over just because I can’t believe it happened,” he said. “(It) was truly just an amazing moment.”
Smith-Knutsen, who lived in Victoria for 17 years before returning to Edmonton last summer, joined the podcast at the end of July 2016. He met Hoskins during the 2015 training camp and became a podcast guest several times.
His favourite podcasts are No. 57 with former CFL referee Bud Steen and No. 67, the first time Dave Jamieson, the former Eskimos vice-president of marketing and communications, appeared on the show.
“We could sit and listen to him all night,” Smith-Knutsen said about Jamieson, who talked for almost 2-1/2 hours.
The show now usually runs about an hour and interviews with players last five to 10 minutes each.
Doucet was a podcast guest earlier this year and joined the podcast team in July as a writer for the new website’s blog and someone with a sharp eye for good photos. She admitted some bias in her pick of episode No. 106 with receiver Bryant Mitchell and offensive lineman Danny Groulx because she did the interview in a rare opportunity on the field after practice.
“To be able to finally meet (Mitchell) and get to chat with him, that was one of my most incredible experiences so far on the podcast just because he was my favourite, but also because he is such a good humble guy and so genuine that it just makes us love him as a player even more,” she said. “On and off the field, he represents what the Eskimos are all about.”
The podcast crew sits in different sections and different sides of the stadium, but are at a tailgate session in the parking lot on the west side of Commonwealth Stadium about 2-1/2 hours before each game, cooking up different types of food with other fans.
They also meet with fans for “Westivus” at the top of Section G to talk about the game at halftime.
“It’s great that we can all enjoy the game in different ways,” said Smith-Knutsen, who started working on an Eskimos history Twitter account and Facebook account when he returned to Edmonton.
Machado, meanwhile, has become well-known since starting a Twitter account in 2010 under the handle of Section O. He often gets stopped on the street or in shopping malls to talk football and Edmonton mayor Don Iveson came looking for his group in the stands at a game in 2015.
“We’ve got pictures with the mayor,” said Machado. “It was cool. We’ve even met the prime minister.”
Machado’s hard hat may be even more famous. He bought a simple white hard hat from Canadian Tire in 2008, painted it green and covered it with Eskimos stickers for his first road game in Vancouver.
“That hard hat has been everywhere,” he said. “It’s been across the country. Don Iveson has had it, the prime minister has had it, everybody wants to take pictures with this hard hat.”
The hard hat went AWOL during the 2015 Grey Cup in Winnipeg. Machado gave it to punter Grant Shaw as he headed for the locker room after the game, hoping to eventually see a picture of somebody wearing his hat while taking a drink out of the Grey Cup. He expected to get the hat back later that night because he was staying at the same hotel as the Eskimos.
But when he reached out to some players on Twitter, no one knew where the hat was. He contacted the Winnipeg Blue Bombers the next day, but it wasn’t in the locker room.
“I’m thinking that this hard hat that I just love has completely gone missing now,” Machado recalled.
After returning to Edmonton, a fake Twitter account started showing the hat in different places around the city. Machado was sent on a wild goose chase by Eskimos players Willie Jefferson, Kenny Stafford and Kendial Lawrence, who were supposedly holding the hat for a ransom.
“Here you’ve got three players basically take a fan’s hard hat and make a big game out of it to return it,” said Machado, who eventually found it at the front door of his condo after receiving a mysterious phone call.
Machado, who has attended each of the last eight Grey Cups and 10 overall, will be at his 85th consecutive Eskimos home game when the Stampeders visit Edmonton on Oct. 28.
“I have not missed an Eskimos home game since July of 2009,” he said. “I’ve gone to games with fevers. I’ve gone to games sick. I will not miss a home game.”
Machado said that the Section O group was doing a siren noise with their mouths after Eskimos touchdowns as a running gag for a couple of years before the CFL team introduced the giant siren at field level last year. Machado even had a jersey made up with “BRVVVVV” on the back to represent the sound.
The core group of Section O got to crank up the Eskimos’ pre-game siren last year after raising 200 toys for Santa’s Anonymous in the week leading up to a game.
“We let that thing go for about a minute,” Machado said. “It was great. Longest and loudest siren to this day. Nobody else has outdone us yet.”